Wet limestone, rotting duckweed, and cold iron soured the underground air of the lower canal lock.
Water seeped through the mortar of the sixty-foot retaining walls, dripping into the dark water gate channel with the hollow, irregular rhythm of a water clock.
Lu Chen walked along the wet stone apron of Sluice Gate Nine. His boots left dry, steaming ovals on the slime-coated granite.
The wolf-skin cloak hung heavy over his broad shoulders, shielding the coarse hemp of his dead-house apron from the river damp.
At his waist, the twelve-pound notched Calamity Cleaver rested against his thigh, cold steel quiet in its oiled leather loop.
Three paces ahead walked Wharf Overseer Han, a stooped man with a greasy rat-tail braid and the fish-belly pallor common to river smugglers.
Han held an oil lantern high above his head, its yellow flame fluttering in the underground draft.
“Right through this tunnel, master courier,” Han rasped, his voice bouncing between the dripping stone walls. “The sunken mooring lines from Barge Nine got fouled in the lower grating. That’s where your royal cargo got caught.”
